Phoebe's Birthday
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: Phoebe thinks Gerald has forgotten her birthday. So she forces a "date" on Arnold to get revenge. Both Helga and Arnold are terribly confused.


**I suppose this story might be a little over the top. But I'm going to place it as one of the last, if not the last episode before the Jungle Movie. So it's not meant to be strange that Arnold is being so possessive of Helga. For the chronological order of all my Hey Arnold fake episodes, please see my profile page. Thank you!**

Seldom does anyone suspect Phoebe Heyerdahl of being a forceful, impassioned person. Yet, secretly, in her heart of hearts, there lay a slightly passive-aggressive bent. Her rage, boiling over, was eating away at her now as Gerald Johanssen kept pounding away at the gamestick controls in the video game arcade with not a care in the world.

"Something happening the day after tomorrow? Nope, nope! Nothing that I can recall!" the boy (with skin as fair as a candy bar) stated flatly with a wide grin. His eyes roved way up high as though he knew a secret, but Phoebe was at the wrong angle to see.

"What do you mean nothing's happening tomorrow?!" the girl squeaked with soft-spoken rage. Tomorrow was her birthday. She knew it. The whole class knew it. And she was certain she had hinted at it to Gerald for weeks. Phoebe knotted her hands at her sides. If only she were as mean and ill-tempered as Helga, she could set him straight! But no, as angry as she was, her rage hadn't boiled enough. She let the breath she had been holding flatten in a defeated puff.

"Well, if there's nothing important for us to discuss," Phoebe said grinding in her words as slowly as if she were stepping on Gerald's foot with a high-heel shoe, "then I'm going home!"

Phoebe grit her teeth.

"Yup! See ya, sweetheart!" Gerald said, still half-locked into the daydream required to control video game controls. What Phoebe failed to see as she stomped away in cold fury was that Gerald blew her a kiss from the arcade window. Then he winked and chuckled with glee. Gerald knew, unlike Phoebe, that her friends were planning a surprise party. Some of the other kids in arcade joined Gerald at the window to chuckle at her lack of knowledge.

"You've got the streamers for her surprise birthday party, tomorrow, right?" Gerald asked Peapod Kid. The boy fiddled with his glasses.

"Affirmative! I've got more than the prerequisite number of yards required to decorate said party."

"Good, good!" Gerald nodded.

"I've got candles for the cake!" another kid screamed while hopping up and down on one foot.

"Great, great! Good job, y'all!" said Gerald with a smile to anticipate a great future. Phoebe whirled around again to shoot one glance back the the arcade window. All three kids ducked before she could spot them.

In the end, it might have been better if their stealth had been less successful, for Phoebe stomped home in a terrible cloud of fury. She didn't even stop to talk to her parents when she got home. Instead, she marched into her room, took a big black marker from her nightstand to cross one more day off her calendar, then flopped down on her bed to stare at the mark she had drawn. On her belly, she hugged her pillow tight against her chest for comfort. Then, with a grr, Phoebe snapped to throw the pillow halfway across the room. She decided to flip upside down to stare at the ceiling instead. After a while, the largely intelligent girl sat up. Today was not one of her days of good common sense.

"That Gerald!" Phoebe pouted to her room with a loud sniff. She walked over to a portrait of him tucked between leafy bonsai and flattened it to the ground with a growl. "Forgetting all about me! I thought he liked me! I remembered his birthday! It's not fair!" the girl whined.

Sometimes time eases the pain of a youth's heart. But by the next morning, Phoebe's pain of being forgotten by Gerald had not eased enough. It had only intensified. Phoebe drew a large circle around the words, "Phoebe's birthday" on her calendar, then stopped to stare at them. Then, her eyes crossed, Phoebe threw herself off the bed.

"Hmph!" Phoebe sputtered like a jilted lover. "If nobody's remembered my birthday, then I don't need to be friends with them at all! I can celebrate my birthday all by myself!" Phoebe's pity party was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. Her father called her down to the door.

"Phoebe, it's your friend Helga to see you, dear!" Phoebe walked down her home's staircase and out onto the stoop to find Helga with a large birthday package in her arms. She looked up at the package with a little self-admonishment.

"Oh! Helga! You remembered my birthday!" she said with much shock as she accepted the package. "Why, thank you, Helga!"

"Would you like to come in for blueberry pancakes?" Phoebe's mother asked from just inside the door. Helga and Phoebe trotted into the house.

"Thanks, Helga! It's really great!" Phoebe declared. She unwrapped the large package only to find it was mostly air inside. There was a bookmark and a toy miniature of an action robot samurai warrior inside.

"Oh! Thank you!" the girl mumbled. She stared down at the little toy action figurine.

"See?" Helga quipped. "It's just like the character from Action-Robo-Marines! You press this little button on the back, see, and chop, chop, chop!"

"Oh. Thanks Helga!" Phoebe uttered, a little disappointed.

"I also got you this little bracelet!" Helga said. She pulled a little arts-and-crafts project out of her pocket and tied to Phoebe's wrist. This gift, Phoebe seemed to like a whole lot better.

"Thanks, Helga!" the girl said. She looked at it with a slight blush of happiness. "That so uncommonly nice... I mean, so thoughtful of you!" Phoebe stuttered out.

"Sure!" Helga blurted out between mouthfuls of pancake. She had about five such pancakes speared on her fork and another ten on her plate.

"Well, see ya around, Phoebes!" Helga said from Phoebe's doorstep. She gave the girl a wave then jogged off. Where Helga was going, Phoebe did not know. She did not think to ask. She only knew that the sorrow of being forgotten by Gerald was returning to her heart. Her face looked sad. So, standing up on her tiptoes and grunting, Phoebe grasped the collar of her summer coat and pulled it down from a tall coat rack. She shrugged her arms into the light coat, then walked outside. It was a blustery day. Whirls of rubbish rolled by her along the sidewalk to suck into the sewers. If she didn't know better, Phoebe might have thought she had seen Abner flying by in the windy air (with a squeal).

The wind eventually calmed enough so that Phoebe's hair didn't puff alongside her cheeks. The girl shed her coat, then folded it so it would fit snugly in the crook of her arm. As she did so, she was startled by a familiar voice speaking suddenly behind her. But it wasn't Gerald.

"Phoebe? What are you doing here?" Arnold said from the top stair of his stoop. He waggled one his little black shoes. Phoebe had been wandering idly so much that she had ended up walking all the way to Arnold's house. The boy narrowed his eyes at his stoop's trespasser, delighted to have a friend visit but wary of women. The poor boy was wising up.

"Oh! I was… I was.. Coming to visit you!" Phoebe blurted out hoping not to look too lame and pitiful. "What are you doing today, Arnold?"

"Well, I have somewhere to be a three o'clock this afternoon," said Arnold peering down at the watch strapped on his wrist. "But for now I'm just hanging around!"

"Oh good!" said Phoebe, suddenly intense. She wrapped her arm around one of Arnold's and clung fast. "Let's go over to the library then! They have a whole, new encyclopedia on archeology in the reference section! I'm sure you'd love it!"

"Er, alright then!" Arnold said, a bit leery of his sudden escort. With surprising strength, Phoebe yanked him down the steps of his stoop to the street.

After a short busride, Phoebe was to be found in the library seated at a large oak table with a book taller than her head propped in front of her. Phoebe slowly turned the page to flip to another. Across the table, very far away on the other side, Arnold stared down at a book lain down flat on the table's surface. And unhappy frown on his face and his fist pressed against his cheek, Arnold read, then flipped quickly to another page of the encyclopedia Phoebe had forced upon him. Arnold lifted up his watch to his eye-level to read the time.

"It's 12:40!" Arnold declared with importance. "Phoebe, do you want to…"

"Go out for ice-cream?!" Phoebe intentionally interrupted him. "Yes!" Phoebe leapt to her feet and began dragging Arnold by his arm again. The blond-haired boy resisted by dragging his feet a little. But then he rolled his eyes up to the heavens and went along with it.

The two had only just settled themselves down in a booth with soft-serve ice-cream when Phoebe stood up on her feet. She and Gerald stared at one another in shock from opposite sides of the restaurant window. Gerald had been casually strolling down the sidewalk. But the sight of his almost-formal girlfriend dining out with his best friend had flat-footed him.

"Oh, Gerald!" Phoebe sputtered. With horror, Phoebe curled her fingers up to her chin. Then a sudden flash of anger lit her eyes. She tipped her chin with a sniff.

"Hmph!" Across the table, Arnold was pointing to his watch.

"Phoebe. It's 2:10! Don't you think it's time we…"

"Went to a better restaurant! Of course!" Phoebe squeaked. "Let's go!" Phoebe said jerking Arnold's elbow upwards with a snap.

"Phoebe…" Arnold admonished the girl as they stood before a restaurant down the street. "You're acting really...well, I don't know how to say this, really… weird today!" Arnold accused as they sat down at the exterior table to a quaint café. "I hope you brought money for this, because I didn't! Besides, it's almost three o'clock and…" the boy said with worried eyes before he bit his lip. He had almost revealed Phoebe's birthday party.

"Of course I have money!" Phoebe said looking in her pocket for cash. "Well, I suppose we could split one order of fries!" the girl amended sadly. Arnold gave the girl a pitying look. He could tell the girl was trying hard although he didn't know the reason. Arnold's eyes grew wide as saucers as they landed on his best friend, Gerald for the first time that day. He was lurking in the potted plants ringing the periphery of the restaurant. Phoebe spotted where Arnold's eyes had landed. They rounded as she saw Gerald, wide-eyed and confused. But the girl was wildly angry. She came up with a sudden, stupid plan.

"Arnold! I think you're a wonderful boy!" Phoebe yelled across the restaurant as loudly as her tiny voice could go. She lunged forward as if to kiss Arnold, but the boy held her back by pressing a hand gently against her collarbone. Phoebe was much too small to overpower him like Helga could.

"Woah, there!" Arnold said his eyes flickering back and forth between his best friend and Phoebe. "Does this have anything to do with Gerald?" From behind one of the potted plants, Helga stood up suddenly. She pointed a finger directly at Phoebe. Then Helga used both her own hands to pretend to choke her own throat, and rapidly jabbed another finger in Phoebe's direction. Helga's rude and threatening gesture was followed by her usual leer. The blond-haired girl with the pink bow tie glared at her friend, stooped forward at a hunch.

"Phoebe, please sit down," Arnold said with a tired, but calm, huff. He interlaced his fingers together on the table. "Do you want to let me in one what's going on?" Phoebe teared up.

"It's awful!" the girl sniffed burying her face in her hands. "It's my birthday today and Gerald forgot all about it! After I reminded him so much!" Arnold turned his head a bit. Helga had snatched Gerald by the scruff of his shirt-collar and had seated them both at the table next to them. She buried her nose in a copy of the menu to eavesdrop.

"Phoebe," Arnold said with much attempt to be brief. "Gerald did not forget your birthday! He just was pretending to forget about it to throw you a surprise party! No one wanted me to tell you about it, but… if you don't go to it now you'll be late!" Arnold said looking down at the face of his watch again. "It's 2:59! The party was supposed to start at 3:00!"

"Oh!" Phoebe said. A stupefied expression filtered across her face. She turned to the boy seated at the table just behind her. "Gerald, I'm so!"

"Sorry?" Gerald said with a shrug. "I'm sorry, too! I suppose I was being a bit insensitive trying to keep up the surprise!" Arnold stood up on his feet. He startled both Gerald and Phoebe by making a flourished bow.

"Now excuse me, Gerald!" Arnold said with a powerful mastery that would blossom during adulthood. "I have to steal your 'date'."

"Huh?" Gerald sputtered as Arnold scooped up a mesmerized Helga in his powerful arms so that her head cradled against his chest. "You can have mine in exchange!"

"You rogue, you!" Gerald said with a wink. "Tell the birthday party we'll be along in an hour or so. I think Phoebe and I need a little 'alone time' to sort things out," Gerald said making romantic eyes at the girl who had been trying to make him jealous. Where Arnold and Helga went to or how brazen they were acting, Gerald and Phoebe didn't care. They were lost in their own little world. The end.


End file.
